A Day at Target

So, to set this up, I need to head back to last night. Last night, Bria graced my dreams. Considering how much time we spent together, I'm surprised that she hasn't appeared before in recent memory. I was meeting her husband and we were getting along well. Later in the dream, she and I and three others were working together for my two previous bosses. Someone else and I were returning from a team-building retreat and she and two other colleagues were about to leave for it, so I was telling her what she could expect if their retreat was the same as ours. For being one of my dreams, it was pretty normal and pretty unmemorable, which was weird. But, it often seems that someone specifically appearing in my dream who hasn't been part of my life for a long time often precedes my actually connecting with them in some way by a week or two. I don't know how that works... I'm not suggesting I have ESP or anything (though that dream I had that I died a day or two before 9/11 was pretty freaky) but I'm also convinced that if we only use 10% of our brains that there's a lot of stuff we don't necessarily understand about how the mind works.

Anyhow, that sets up the first part. Now, let's set up the second part. I'm in Target with Rachel. I've been charged with tiring her out so she'll take her nap earlier in the day because we have plans when she would otherwise be napping. In addition to being weary, she still hasn't fully learned the valuable lesson of really being aware of her surroundings. She was a few steps behind me and a guy was coming down the aisle with one of those large carts that holds several kids in the back. Rachel starts saying "Look out! Look out!" The guy, amused, starts weaving, like he's coming after her. I didn't think he meant any harm. She, though, occupied by the cart, is not looking forward at all. And before I can stop her, she walks smack into a stopped cart in the aisle. She's startled, scared and probably a tiny bit hurt and starts shrieking. There were others around who realized that it was completely unintentional.

I had parked my cart around the corner and was already trying to get back to her when she smacked into the cart so pretty quickly she was in my arms crying and calming down.

All the sudden I hear from behind me "Excuse me." I'm thinking 'Oh, great, some woman is about to yell at me for being negligent.' But when I turn around they say "Are you James? James Lamb?" I respond that I am and they give their name, but I can't hear it over Rachel and ask them to repeat it, thinking I had heard "Barbara" and for a moment 'Barbara Beckinghausen?' flashed through my brain. I am so bad with faces, that I was wondering when she did repeat her name, Barbara Kanouse. Not Bria, but another redhead from my past. (Loosely, that is. She was pretty cool, but way out of my league. Can't really remember much of high school, but hers is one of the names that stand out.)

We chatted for a few minutes, I learned that she was married, had three kids, the youngest six, and that she lived in Tacoma, just a mile from where we live and had lived there for three years. I was still shaken up by what had happened to Rachel, combined with my own crappy ability to communicate socially with people that I am still kicking myself for not having done a better job of talking to her. I am still thinking of things I could have asked.

So that's going to be something that's gonna bug me. Here, another opportunity to catch up with an old friend, blown because I'm still just as socially inept as I ever was.

Cool City Thing

I have to admit I don't exactly understand what the point of the link above is, but I know it looks pretty cool, especially the video (until the end when all the cars start spiraling on the screen for no apparent reason.) As near as I understand this, this is a program that takes a bit of land and produces organic and organized urban growth and planning using mathmatical calculations. In their example, it's using wierd circular roads, but the way it's rendered is pretty cool. I hope that future versions of Simcity look this great. I'm tired of roads that can only run due east-west or due north-south.

Escape from Cubicle Nation

Awesome article. She's (Pam Slim) now a added item under "Who I'm Reading"

Life Lessons?

I was looking for something else and came across this...

CODING / WRITING SOFTWARE

1. Don't over-engineer a solution.
2. There's a whole game of Chinese whispers between what the customer asks for, and what is delivered.
3. Don't forget to check files into source control.
4. Over-estimate how long something will take.
5. Code simply, so the next person can read it.
6. Comment what the code is for, not how it does it.
7. Frequently check with the customer that what you are writing is what they think they want.
8. Learn how to use Google for samples and bug fixes.
9. Whilst writing software, you need to picture the people who will use it.
10. Keep up to date with technology.

WORK IN GENERAL

11. You can only work with what you have, so make the best of it.
12. Being genuinely enthusiastic is good.
13. Find out exactly what criteria you will be assessed against, and make sure you do those well.
14. Training courses aren't all they're cracked up to be.
15. See what mistakes other people make, and learn from them.
16. Each company I have worked for has been better than the previous one.
17. Don't write an email while you are angry. Don't even make any decisions while you are angry. Calm down first. Leave it a day or two.
18. Don't say "yes" to everything.
19. You will make more difference getting better at things you are rubbish at than the things you are quite good at.
20. Keep learning.

PEOPLE

21. At least one of your colleagues will think they are better than you. Hopefully they won't tell your other colleagues.
22. You spend loads of time with your colleagues. Much more than with your family and friends.
23. People keep cropping up when you think you won't see them again.
24. Be helpful.
25. Be careful with first impressions. They are often wrong, so don't trust yours. Other people may judge you on their first impression of you.
26. Don't be smug, arrogant or lead people to believe you know more than you do.
27. Being a gossip is bad.
28. Don't belittle yourself or your colleagues in front of your customer or boss.
29. If you're not very good at one aspect of your job, find someone who is good at it, and ask them to help you.
30. Everyone has good points and bad points. You will be happier if you focus on people's good points.

Cool News: Girls in Afghanistan

WORLDVISION.ORG -- In the past two years, the number of girls enrolled in school in Afghanistan has doubled, thanks in part to efforts and funding from World Vision and the United States Department of Agriculture. More...

Weird Survey

Ok, this was an actual question on a survey I was taking about TV. I guess
these people need DVR's, or at least a second TV. Forgive me, but does stuff like this really happen?

Have any of the following resulted from disputes in your household about what to watch at a given time? (Please check all that apply.)

Remote control tossing
Drinks or food thrown
Long silent treatment
Glass broken
Icy stares
Withholding of affection
TV toppled or smashed
Furniture tossed or knocked over
Shouting matches
Storming off to another room
Physical altercations
Heated discussions
Cable cords ripped from the wall
None of the above

Updated Google Wish List

I've started the process of putting these requests on the more appropriate
Google Groups, but they actually ought to have a "Suggestions/Feature
Request" category within each section.

Gmail
(1) "Map" link in contacts if address is stored
(2) "Add to Contacts" link on recognized address or phone number
(3) Ding noise for new messages, like what's now available for Google Talk
(4) Remember Chat/NoChat/HTML lite by computer, not by login (w/chat is blocked at work so I elect for NoChat version at work, but want Chat version at home)

Gmail-Contacts
(5) I cannot mark an e-mail address as "inactive" - If I can archive e-mail forever, then eventually someone's going to give up an old address, but I still need it tied to their contact so that when I view e-mails from them, these old e-mails show up.
(6) If a website address is added, it should be parsed out and available as a clickable link.
(7) Tabs - a long list is no fun to scroll through but sometimes search isn't the best option (sorry!)
(8) Ability to merge contacts

Local
(9) "Identify" option on maps, that can give you the address of the location you've clicked on. And then can search Google for that address. (big brother? maybe. Zillow uses Google Maps and offers the addressing part already.)
(10) doesn't refresh/update the search results as you move the map (see Live Local and Yahoo! Maps Beta)
(11) doesn't offer categories (see Yahoo! Maps Beta) - hopefully new deal with Verizon Superpages will solve this
(12) no way to close/hide the search results panel

Calendar
(13) Allow me to select an address from my list of contacts -- even if that contact isn't on the invite list.
(14) separate the "location" into two parts... a written description and a actual address.
(15) parse the comments so that maps and links are live
(16) allow for the deletion of comments

Talk
(17) doesn't show events from the calendar